Beheading and Human sacrifice to Gods

Beheading and Human Sacrifice in history: Firstly, when is it human sacrifice and when is it merely a form of punishment? 

 

Beheadings Were Common Across Europe

 

The answer seems to lie in who is relating the story. History is always written by the victors so they say, and that seems to have greatly influenced what we consider human sacrifice or not.

 

For example everyone knows that the Mexican Aztecs (and possibly the Peruvian Incas) practised ‘human sacrifice and cannibalistic ceremony’s’ and there is no denying the evidence of the codec’s, and from the city of Zultapec, where the skull rack of prisoners including Spaniards have been found. The Aztec codec’s illustrate that captured horses were also sacrificed in the same manner.

Without doubt the priests took the lives of prisoners of war by cutting their hearts and entrails out using flint or obsidian knives. Occasionally there were cannibalistic events after the sacrifice, but the religious significance of this is not truly understood apart from the obvious “gaining of strength from the meat of the enemy”.

However it’s obvious that this ‘sacrifice’ was of a religious nature, and wasn’t performed merely for punishment or pleasure. The Aztec belief system involved various gods many of whom had sacrificed themselves in order to keep the universe or cosmos moving, and it was this that is mimicked in their sacrifices.

The Aztecs had many subjugated races in the empire who need the occasional ‘shock and awe’ to keep them in line. The skulls were passed around the subjected races to ensure the message was taken in. From the Aztec point of view this was not anything more than a Eucharist event is to Catholics i.e. partly religious and part symbolism.

The Aztec 'Tzompantli' or 'Skull Rack'

Other pre modern human ‘sacrifice’ cultures:

Pre-history is full of evidence of cannibalism in Neolithic times. It seems inconceivable that this did not involve ‘sacrificing’ the victims i.e. the victims weren’t merely murdered and eaten, so this was probably the first instances of human sacrifice.

The Druids of pre Roman Britain practised human sacrifice, and there is evidence for this from the Irish bog bodies, as well as the ‘wicker man’ ceremonies that survived in more remote areas.

The Norse carried out large scale human sacrifices at major centres such as the Temple at Uppsala, and the Viking ‘Blood Eagle’ was something to fear from Damascus to York. These sacrifices went on up until 1087 AD (and probably beyond in some remote places).

In Christianity, the Eucharist event is a symbol of blood and sacrifice to Catholics and other Christian sects. Surely, Christ’s willingness to go to the cross, was a ‘sacrifice’ to absolve mankind of its sins, the last lamb so to speak? The continuing practise of Kourbània (sacrificing animals, usually lambs, to saints), in some remote parts of Greece is thought to be a hang over from pre Christian practises. Human sacrifice has never been a feature of the religion.

Judaism had a long history of animal sacrifice, but it died out after the destruction of the 2nd temple in 70 AD. Human sacrifice has never been a feature of the religion although Abraham (Ibrahim in the Islamic tradition), was supposed to have been asked to sacrifice his first born to Jehovah. The myth of Jewish sacrifices carried on into the modern era as a racial slander such the blood slander and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.

Some versions of Islam still hold animal sacrifice (Qurban) to be acceptable during certain ‘religious’ festivals. This involves cutting the throat of a live (conscious) animal. Ironically it’s often these very same groups who keep the myth of the blood slander against the Jews alive.

In more recent times the worshippers of the Hindu Goddess Kali in India, known as ‘Thuggee’s’ were known to kill humans for religion, and used a ritualistic method of strangling (that also kept the noise down), wherever possible. They were wiped out in the 19th century but recent activities suggest it has been revived.

The criminal punishments of 17th century Europe look like a form of sacrifice to most modern people’s eyes – Unspeakable torture was common in criminal cases, and especially for traitors as recently as the 18th century. Being ‘Hung, drawn and quartered’ or ‘burnt at the stake’ was surely a human sacrifice on some level, as well as a punishment. The full punishment could still be administered as late as 1814 AD in Britain, although in practise the last person to suffer the punishment in the UK was a Scotsman in 1782 AD, and the last in a British colony was 1797 AD.

Interestingly judicial torture i.e. for criminal court cases, had all but died out by 1605 in the UK, when it took a letter of authority from the King to allow Guy Fawkes to be tortured, and torture was completely abolished in England by 1640 AD, and in Europe by the 1790’s. Although with the extreme punishments if found guilty, it was only a partial relief.

Modern forms:

Outside of the ‘civilised world’, human sacrifice has never completely been halted. Indeed even in the 20th century the Communists had their show trials followed by executions in Russia. This was a ritualised form of 'sacrifice' with a repentance and punishment all carried out in a public manner.

Today we have for example the ritualised torture and public beheading of the victims of certain groups from Africa to Asia. Just this year a Kenyan sect beheaded six people, but this is rare, and by far the greatest number of these stories comes from Islamic sources, such as the story of a twelve year old boy who beheaded his first victim this year.

The states use of torture by Arab states is well documented, from Egypt, through Saudi Arabia to Syria, all have current records of both judicial and extra judicial torture, but beheading is rare (and even the actual executions of the death penalty are quite rare), so the ‘sacrificial’ element is lacking from the disgusting practises.

However there is now an active strand of Islam that first tortures, then sacrifices by beheading (cutting of heads - in Arabic, 'qata al-raas'), their victims in the name of Allah, by that I mean that the crime is portrayed as the “Will of Allah”.

This is nothing new as beheading is the preferred Arab way of killing prisoners, including the one-year-old baby boy Ali Asghar in Karbala in 680 AD, as part of the killings that birthed the Shia’s. It is considered to be ‘humane’ to behead a victim rather than hanging for example, but with the gun available, it appears that there are certain sacrificial aspects to beheading, that keep terrorists using the method.

The BBC quoted one Pakistani militant, 'Faisal', who said:

"cutting off the head is the best and most humane way to kill. When the head is removed from the body the soul is immediately released. Whereas when you hang a person, the soul has to struggle to escape from the mouth. If we want to punish someone, we cut his head from the back of the neck, instead of the throat. That is very painful and its takes a long time to die." One of the militant group we are told, has decapitated 53 men.

From the videotapes of a beheading that usually accompanies every kidnap of Westerners, to the mass slaughter of Muslim prisoners who are tied and bound in Iraq and Algeria, modern Islam appears to have retreated into some mirror image of an ancient bloody past, where bloodthirsty winged devils and gory altars, haunted the ancient Middle East.

You don't need to understand Arabic to get the message of those videos of a beheading, with their rituals and liturgy from the mosque. The sermon, read by a self styled imam precedes the sacrifice, then the human calf, bound and shivering with terror (apart from the brave Italian hostage), has his or her throat slit, by the holy man.

This self styled Imam may well be the local halal butcher, as was found to be the case in Algeria, where ‘Momo le Nain’, aka Mohammed the Midget, a butchers apprentice, beheaded many prisoners. On one memorable night in 1996, in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, ‘Momo’ cut off a record 86 heads in one night, that included taking the heads of more than a dozen children.

This search for victims includes not just those who oppose the spread of the faith, but pretty well anyone the Imams dislike, such as women. In Pakistan in 2007 two women were beheaded for being prostitutes. This follows the beheading of ten soldiers in the Philippines and the beheading of Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia in 2005.

We could be watching events from 4,000 years ago, not the 21st century and how long before the first western victims in Europe, Australia or the US? The terrorists may well only ‘mimic the rituals of the faith’, but for Muslim or non Muslim apologists to declare it as ‘Non Islamic’ to behead or torture, is to display an ignorance of the Quran and Hadiths, or to lie.

(Quran: Sura Al-Muhammad 47:4)
“So, when you meet (in fight Jihâd in Allâh's Cause), those who disbelieve, smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e. take them as captives). Thereafter (is the time) either for generosity (i.e. free them without ransom), or ransom (according to what benefits Islâm), until the war lays down its burden. Thus [you are ordered by Allâh to continue in carrying out Jihâd against the disbelievers till they embrace Islâm or at least come under your protection.”

Or maybe:

(Quran: Sura 47, Verse 4)
“As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, 'When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks'”.

There are many more quotes of a similar nature that taken out of context, or literally, support the terrorist’s theology. In fact it’s because of these apparent Quranic endorsements of torture, that a religion, where every man with a turban can claim to be a scholar of the faith, has produced so few or no public condemnations of the ritualised beheading's being beamed almost nightly on Arab TV or the Internet.

Who would have thought that human sacrifice in the name of a world religion would once again stalk the earth in the 21st Century?

The biography of one of these Islamic killers.

Updated 2018 to include link to Kali killings in modern India.

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